


Look Who's Talking Too

by softjoycebyers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 15:59:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14855795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softjoycebyers/pseuds/softjoycebyers
Summary: Joyce and Hopper are so close to getting what they want but nothing has ever been smooth sailing for them.





	Look Who's Talking Too

**Author's Note:**

> A follow up to Look Who's Talking, I would recommend reading that first but I don't think you have to in order to follow along.  
> I'm a graduate of the Grey’s Anatomy School of Medicine, so that makes me perfectly qualified to write this story! jk, I googled a lot.

“I’m going to be late for work!”

Joyce hurried to gather her clothes from where they were thrown around the bedroom floor, this was the second time she’s gotten dressed that morning. She didn’t how she had let Hopper convince her that they had time for a quickie–not that she’d ever regret their lovemaking but she really should have known better. Hopper always liked to take his time.

“I didn’t hear you complaining about that earlier,” he grumbles as he put on his pants.

“Shut up,” Joyce says buttoning up her shirt and moving to the bathroom to apply her mascara.  
Hopper follows her, leaning against the frame as he buttoned his cuffs.

“Do you want me to talk to Donald?” He squints. “I am, after all, the Chief of Police.”

Joyce snorts, “No. Definitely not.” She shook her head, “Donald is scared enough of me already, and he doesn’t need both of us.”

Hopper follows her out of the bathroom then, as she begins to gather her purse, throwing miscellaneous items in.

“Will you help me find my keys?”

Hopper chuckles, “how does this always happen?”

He walks out into the living room and heads for the couch he knows Joyce dropped her keys into.

She comes barreling down the hall muttering to herself about how late she already was just as Hopper pulls her keys out from the jaws of the cushion that had swallowed them whole, and takes them from his outstretched hand with a kiss to his lips.

“Can you make sure the kids get to school okay?”

Joyce heads out the door with Hopper still hot on her heels.

“Of course.”

“And Jonathan gets in today,” she reminds him, beaming.

He knows this, and is just as excited about seeing their oldest as she is. Joyce has talked about nothing else since Jonathan had called them earlier that week to inform of them of his surprise visit, and his timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

 At this point, Hopper is just leading Joyce to her car. He knew she could come up with a list as long as his arm of things he should remember before 8 a.m.

“Oh,” she says, stopping as he opened the car door for her, turning to look up at him through her lashes, “you’ll be home early for dinner, right? We’re telling the kids tonight.”

His face lights up, “Yeah.”

“Okay, “Joyce raises up on her tiptoes to kiss him goodbye.

“You gotta go,” He tells her through their kiss.

“I’m going,” she sighs letting him go.

With that she finally gets in her Pinto and drives off to work, and he goes to wake Will and Jane up for school.

*

Joyce’s day at Melvald’s started out like any other: slow. Somewhere around mid-morning, however, it seemed as if everyone in town needed something and she hadn’t been off her feet since she settled into work earlier that morning. By noon, when she went to go get her lunch in the break room fridge, Joyce realized that she had forgotten to pack it. On a whim, she asks Donald if she could go home to get it and he had been in a good enough mood to let her.

The pain she felt was unlike anything she’s ever experienced before, and she was sure she never wanted to feel something like it again. It was the current that shot up through her belly and around her back that left her breathless. She doubles over and cries out––the contents of her lunch were now scattered on the kitchen floor.

“Mom?” She barely registers the panicked voice of her eldest son. It sounded so far away and muddled.

It was in that moment that Joyce knew that something was severely wrong, and maybe she should have picked up the signs sooner, but even in her pained haze she didn’t remember there being any signs of discomfort. But she knew now it was too late anyway. She knew it was gone.  

“No,” She whimpers.

“Mom?”

“Joyce?”

_"It’s gone_ ,” She sobs.

Jonathan looks at Nancy like a deer caught in headlights, he was confused and terrified at the sight of his mother a crumpled heap on the floor. They’d only been home for a few minutes and hadn’t heard Joyce come in.

It didn’t take Nancy long to figure out what Joyce meant, and her broke for her but she quickly sprang into action.

“Jonathan.” Nancy reached out to grab Joyce’s hand squeezing tightly, hoping to reassure her somehow that everything was going to be okay. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

“Now!” She barks, when he still didn’t move. “An ambulance would take too long.”

Jonathan hesitated a second more, not wanting to leave his mother alone.  

“Keys,” He absentmindedly patted his pocket looking for them. Like mother like son.

Nancy rolls her eyes, “Coffee table.”

He ran off to go get them and then went to start the car, it always took that junk of junk a minute to start up.

“It’s okay Joyce.” Nancy tells her, “We’re going to get you help.”

By now, Joyce’s sobs had lessened, but she was overcome with a sense of numbness.

“Can she walk?” Jonathan asked as he walked back to where his mother and girlfriend were.

“No,” Nancy shakes her head. “You’re going to have to carry her.”

Joyce barely feels being lifted off the floor and onto wobbly knees.

It was then Jonathan noticed the blood.

“Holy shit,” he gasps. “Why is she bleeding?”

“We need to go now, Jonathan.” Nancy rushes him out the door, and to his car.

He lay Joyce in the back seat and she curls into herself instinctively, trying to quell the random bursts of pain that’s shooting through her abdomen.

Nancy sat in the back with her, placing her head in her lap as Jonathan puts the car in reverse and gunned it for Hawkins General.

*

Callahan was on patrol by the side of the road watching for speeders. He was hidden in a grove of trees when he saw Jonathan’s LTD speeding down the road. Not wanting to piss the Chief off, or worse his wife, by giving the boy a ticket he figured he might as well let Hopper deal with it, so he radioed the station.

“Come in Callahan,” came Flo’s grainy voice.

“Uh, hey Flo,” He says into the mouthpiece. “Can you tell the Chief I saw his boy speeding down Main––looked like was he was headed towards Hawkins Gen...”

Before Flo even had time to even move from her seat at the front desk, Hopper was already at the coat rack, grabbing his hat and pulling on his coat. He had heard his deputy through the dispatch machine. Something didn’t feel right, and he could sense it. Were the kids okay? Was Joyce?

Hopper had heard the confusion in Callahan’s voice through his open door, and at the mention of the hospital he was already reaching for his keys.

“Hawkins General!” Flo calls out to his retreating back.

His final thought as he left the station was: Jesus, not again.

*

“Ma’am!” Jonathan stopped the first nurse he sees upon entering the hospital. “Please. My mom needs help, she’s bleeding.”

The nurse immediately signaled for an Orderly to bring a gurney, and almost like magic it appeared. Joyce was taken from Jonathan and placed in the bed.

“Do you know where it hurts?” She shined a light in Joyce’s eyes, trying to gauge state of consciousness.

Joyce groaned in response, speaking was the last thing she had energy for.

Nancy turned to the nurse who was starting to wheel Joyce off, “I think she’s having a miscarriage,” she whispers softly.

“A what?” Jonathan turned to look at Nancy sharply but she ignored him, watching as the nurse paged the doctor on call.

“Okay. Get her in an OR room, now,” she tells the orderly who whisked Joyce out of sight away down the hall.

Jonathan went to sit down.

“Hey,” Jonathan looks up at the nurse. “We got her. She’s going to be fine.” And then she disappeared in the same direction his mother was taken.

Nancy comes to sit next to him a few seconds minutes later, laying her head on his shoulder.  

“You didn’t know?” She didn’t expect him to respond, she doubted anyone outside two people knew at this point.

No, Jonathan did not know and he was sure his siblings didn’t either. How was he going to explain this to them?

Just then, Hopper came charging into the hospital, voice booming and demanding answers.

“Chief!” Nancy calls.

Hopper turned towards the waiting area where a red-faced Nancy now stood next to a distraught Jonathan.

He didn’t get a chance to ask why they were in the hospital before Jonathan questioned, “Did you know my mom was pregnant?”

The word was stood out to him instantly, and suddenly Hopper felt as though he couldn’t breathe. They’d been happy that morning. What had happened between then and now?

“Oh,” he chokes on his words, plopping himself heavily in the nearest chair, burying his face in his hands.

On the drive, over to the hospital he had thought of every worst-case scenario that could have happened, though none of them involved Joyce, and certainly not this.

Nancy excused herself to go call her mom, but neither men heard her.

While Jonathan was lost in the horror of finding his mother bleeding out on the floor, Hopper was lost in a maze of guilt and self-hatred.

The damn black hole. It got her. It got Joyce, and their baby, before they even had the time to really enjoy it. They were so excited to tell the kids over dinner that night, and had the whole meal planned. But he should have realized nothing ever came easy for them.

Goddamnit, Joyce was off-limits. Hopper felt guilty for talking her into trying in the first place, he should have gone with his gut and left the past in the past. Joyce was right all along, they were too old for this, and he should have accepted that. He should have been satisfied with the three amazing kids he already had. He had promised not to hurt her, and he failed.

“Dad,” Jonathan cleared his voice, placing a hand on the broken man’s shoulder, taking a seat next to him. On a regular day, he might not have called him this out loud, and he wasn’t sure where it was coming from now. No matter how much he looked up to Hopper as a father figure, Jonathan felt to old to need a dad now, he thought that was more for Will to decide.

“She’s going to be okay,” Jonathan thinks that if he repeats the words the nurse told him earlier he would start to believe them, and maybe Hopper might too.  
“You know mom’s strong.”

Hopper nods absently. Joyce was one of the strongest people he knew. He also knew he needed to get it together because she was going to need him, even if he didn’t feel like he strong was enough right now.

“I know kid,” Hopper squeezed his shoulder.

“Dad!”

Both men look up as Jane and Will burst into the hospital waiting room, followed by Max, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin.  
“What happened?”

“Is mom okay?”  
In their time together, Jane and Will had picked up a knack for finishing each other's sentences, and it was endearing sometimes when they weren’t trying to annoy each other or other people with their new-found talent.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” Karen says, following the kids in. “They all insisted on coming along.”

“It’s fine Karen.” Hopper stood to hug his children.

“Still no news yet?”

Hopper shook his head.

“No,” Nancy answers, coming back to the waiting room and ushering her brother and his friends to sit in the chairs by the wall. “They took her to the operating room but they haven’t given us any updates yet.”

*

“Hey guys,” Jonathan walks up to where Jane and Will were now sitting with their friends. They looked up at him expectantly, waiting for an answer.

Jonathan runs a hand through his hair, thinking of a way to explain the situation without scaring them but the words weren’t coming together. They were just as clueless about their mother’s pregnancy as he was, but sugarcoating the seriousness of it was out of the question.

“Uh,” He falters trying to find the words. “Mom had a miscarriage.”

From the side, he heard Max gasp softly, but he ignores it, focusing on his siblings.

“What’s a miscarriage?” This is one concept Jane hadn’t heard of yet before, and she was confused.

“That’s when a woman who was going to have a baby, loses the baby,” That was simple enough.

“Why?” Jane asks.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

Will gapes at Jonathan, “Mom was going to have a baby?”

“Did you know?” If anything, Will assumed, his brother would have been told first.

“Wait. Wait a minute.” Dustin pipes up, “You have to sex to make a baby.” He voiced his thought out loud.

“But you’re like, old.” He says to Hopper.

Max, Mike, and Lucas all groaned while Hopper could help but laugh at his outburst. Leave it to Dustin to try and defuse any situation with humor even when he wasn’t trying to be funny.

“Dude.” Max smacked him upside his head.

“Grow up, Dustin!” Lucas hisses.

“I’m sorry,” Dustin shrinks back in his seat.

Mike just rolled his eyes. He really did not need the image of the Chief and his best friend’s mom in his head.

The doctor finally walks into the room a few minutes later, and a hush falls over the group.

“Harriet,” Hopper stands to greet her.

Harriet Sinclair smiled sadly at him as she waves to her son.

“Jim.” She motions for Hopper to follow her down the hall away from their friends and family.

“Is Joyce okay? What happened?”

Dr. Sinclair sighs, she wished she had a better answer to his inquiry but she had to remind herself that she had to be a doctor first, and a friend second.

“As you might have guessed by now, she lost the baby.”

Hopper cringes, but nods in acknowledgment of her response.

“She’s going to be fine––a little sour for a few days but, overall she’ll be physically fine.”

The relief he feels is temporary.

“Uh…” his voice breaks. “Do you know why...”

Harriet pauses before answering. She knows he wouldn’t be satisfied with her answer anyway. “We don’t know, unfortunately.”

She sighs, “it could be due to several things, but she’s perfectly healthy Jim. This was just an unfortunate, spontaneous incident.”

They’re standing outside Joyce’s room now, “Sometimes these things happen, and we don’t always understand why.”

“Okay,” Hopper wasn’t sure he believed that.

Harriet places a hand on his arm, reassuring, “but you can try again. Nothing says you can’t.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, he didn’t want to think that far ahead now or at all.

“Well, if you do decide to try again,” says Harriet, “We will take every necessary precaution possible, we’ll monitor her so closely Joyce won’t know what to do with herself.”

“Thank you.”  
Later he might come to appreciate her words more, but right now he just wanted to see Joyce.  
“I’ll come back later to talk to you both,” are Harriet’s parting words.

*

When he finally walks into her room, Hopper wasn’t sure what he expected but, he was suddenly overcome with images of Sara all those years ago. Her small, fragile body lying in a bed that was too big for her. Joyce looked much the same, and even though he knew she wasn’t dying, those images of Sara were still hard to shake.

“Hey,” Joyce croons lowly. She had sensed his presence at her bedside, her eyes open into slits against the bright lights overhead.

“Hi.” Hopper takes her proffered hand, and brings it to his lips. “You should go back to sleep. You’ve been through a lot.”

“Sleep?” Joyce chuckles but it came out more like a moan, her voice hoarse, and Hopper offers her some ice chips he picked up from her bedside table.

“Who could sleep,” she raised her eyebrow at him. “I can practically hear the wheels turning in your head.”

“Joyce, I–– “

“No,” She stops him. “Don’t do that. This was something we both wanted, remember? We agreed.”  
Hopper begins to pace at her side. this all felt warped somehow. He was the one who was supposed to be comforting her, and yet he felt so inadequate. She always knew the right things to say to talk him off ledge when words failed him. He’d never stop marveling at her strength, but he feels he’s falling short.

“Hop, I’m right here.” She extends her hand out to him once again, silently asking him to take it. “Lay with me? Okay. Please.”  
Joyce was tired. She didn’t want to think about anything else right now. In that moment, all she wanted was to be held by him, and Hopper always underestimated what his arms could do for her.  

“I’m not going to break,” Joyce tries again.

Hopper pinches the bridge of his nose, finally deciding to move back towards the side of the bed, taking her hand in his. He hesitates to get in bed with her, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea, and it looks too small to fit both comfortably.

“Come on,” she squeezes his hand. “It’s okay.”

“Fine.” He finally gives in.

Hopper climbs in bed with her, careful not jostle her too much but the first sharp intake of breath he heard almost had him backed against the wall.

“No, no, no!” Joyce hurries to stop him from leaving, reassuring him that she was fine once again––eventually he lays back to share her pillow.

He was right, the bed was too small for both to fit, but he wrapped his arms carefully around her body, and Joyce settles back into his chest. Hopper didn’t care that he could probably fall out if he moved the wrong way.

“How are my kids?” she asks after a beat, and her question startles him because he thought she had fallen back asleep.

Hopper nuzzles her neck, “they could be better,” he responds honestly. “But I think we’ll get through it,” he sighed.

“I want to see them,” She mumbles, beginning to lose her battle with sleep.

“There will be enough time for that later. You need to rest.”

“But we still need to talk,” Joyce fought back.

“Sleep.”

Joyce yawns, conceding, nodding against his chin.

Just as he was starting to think she was falling back to sleep, she calls out to him again.

“Hop...” her voice trembles.

He hums in response.

“You’ll still be here, right? When I wake up.”

“Of course, Joy.”

“Okay,” she sighs. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He kisses the top of her head, his tears mingling in with her hair.

*

_11 ½ Months Later…_

Joyce was late.

She was late, and once again, it was all his fault.

Their early morning tryst had lasted longer than it should have, and though she was thoroughly satisfied, Joyce is late for work again.

Suddenly, she was overcome with a sense of a deja vu but she shakes it off quickly.

“You know,” she huffs in irritation. “Instead of just watching me, you could be helping me find the rest of my clothes.”

Hopper laughs, trying to enjoy her in this moment before they get busy with their daily activities.

“You’re awfully cute when you’re pretending to be mad.”

“You’re an ass.”

“So, they tell me,” Hopper grins up smugly.

She finds her bra on the chair by the wardrobe and puts it on.

“Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” She asks, now looking for her pants and her shirt.

“I’m the Chief of Police, babe, I can be a little late.”

Hopper spots her pants by his bedside table and holds them out to her.

“That is an abuse of power,” she says as she snatches them.

“Hardly,” He chuckles.

Joyce was trying button up her pants when Hopper’s abrupt silence caused her to look up at him through the mirror.

“What?” She pouts, giving up on the pants as she slipped into her button down Melvald’s shirt.

Hopper was looking at her intently, and it was starting to make her feel a little self-conscious. His eyes, however, were trained more on her midsection rather than her face, trying to discern if what he was seeing was real and not just a trick of the lighting in the room or his imagination.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Joyce frowns. She turns her body slightly towards him, and Hopper knew then he wasn’t just seeing things––she just hadn’t noticed yet.

“You’re showing,” he tells her breathlessly.

Joyce’s eyes widen, “I’m what?”

She quickly turns back to the mirror, checking herself out. She moves her body from side to side, and sure enough there was there was a tiny swell beginning to show.

When had that happened? She wonders.

“Joyce––” Hopper could see the hint of panic starting to creep behind her eyes.

“Oh, my God.”

In an instant he was behind her, hugging her to him.

“Breathe,” he coaches.

They stood in front of the mirror breathing in sync. The rhythm of his chest rising and falling behind her, calming her down from her panic attack.

“May I?” He asked, after she’s breathing at regular intervals again.

Joyce nods her head in consent, “yes.”

She watches him in their reflection as his hand glides down to touch the new roundness of her stomach, and it only takes a moment for her hand to join his there, lacing their fingers together.

“We didn’t get this far last first time,” she whispers.

“I know,” he says. “But it won’t be like that.”

Joyce wanted to believe him, and there’s many reasons why she should. So far, she’s had no major complications other than the usual bought of morning sickness and regular discomfort that  
came with early pregnancy, but it had been like that the first time too and that took a dark. To say she was nervous that something might go wrong again would be an understatement. But she had Hopper and the kids to distract her from those thoughts most days, and she welcomed those distractions. Dr. Sinclair had also followed through on her promise to monitor Joyce at every stage, and she had given her and the baby a clean bill of health at their last appointment, and everything was progressing as it should be.

“Hey,” Hopper tilts her head up to look her in the eyes. “It really is going to be okay this time. We’re going to get our baby.”

She smiles brightly at him, turning around, and kissing him soundly on the lips, placing in the worry to the back of her mind.

“Our baby. I like the sound of the that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I finally sat down to edit this last night, hopefully I didn't make it worse. Any remaining errors, are still mine.  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
